Physics

From the forces that keep athletes twirling and sliding, to the weird laws governing the world of the very small, to the far-out concepts of time travel and alternate universes, physics covers a lot of interesting territory. Here, Live Science keeps you abreast of all the fascinating physics discoveries.Physics

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A Hubble Space Telescope image shows RS Puppis, one of the cepheids used to measure the expansion of the universe.

We might be living in a gigantic, intergalactic bubble

By Rafi Letzter

The bubble concept could explain one of the strangest mysteries plaguing astrophysics: Why can't we tell how fast the universe is expanding?

This radio image shows two jets shooting out of the center of Cygnus A, a galaxy not too far from our own. A new paper reports discovering a similar object in a much more distant, ancient galaxy. That galaxy has a bright, relatavistic jet emanating from its central supermassive black hole pointed at Earth, making it a blazar.

The universe may have been filled with supermassive black holes at the dawn of time

By Rafi Letzter

As the universe cooled in the era after the Big Bang, a supermassive black hole had already formed in the center of a galaxy, forming a giant engine of energy we can still see today.

A long-exposure image shows stars appearing to whirl around Polaris, the north star, which appears fixed in the sky.

Something strange is going on with the North Star

By Rafi Letzter

Something's up with the North Star, a cepheid. Its distance, mass and age should be easy to measure. But new calculations keep disagreeing with one another and failing to make sense.

Did German physicists accidentally discover dark matter in 2014?

By Rafi Letzter

A new theory suggests that dark matter might not be made of undiscovered, never-before-seen particles. Instead, researchers write, it might be made from a type of "hexaquark" detected in 2014.

A screenshot of the APS website shows the announcement that the March meeting has been cancelled.

Huge physics conference canceled at the last minute due to coronavirus fears

By Rafi Letzter

Organizers of the American Physical Society's March conference made the decision to cancel due to coronavirus concerns less than two days before the conference was set to begin.

Physicist Freeman J. Dyson at The Church Center for the United Nations in New York on March 22, 2000.

Freeman Dyson, quantum physicist who imagined alien megastructures, has died at 96

By Rafi Letzter

Physicist Freeman Dyson was known for his work on quantum physics and mathematics, as well as his big ideas about the far future.

An internal photo shows the lasers of the Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus (ALPHA) antimatter experiment at work.

Mysterious 'antihydrogen' particles reveal uncanny quantum effect

By Rafi Letzter

The bubbling, raucous quantum vacuum distorts the shape of every hydrogen atom in the universe, and it distorts antimatter "antihydrogen" too.

Could the universe have more dimensions than we realize?

The universe could possibly have more dimensions. Here's how.

By Paul Sutter

String theory is a purported theory of everything that physicists hope will one day explain … everything.

An illustration shows a rocket approaching an asteroid that's drifted too close to Earth. A scout probe orbits nearby.

What should we do if a 'planet-killer' asteroid takes aim at Earth?

By Rafi Letzter

If a giant object looks like it's going to slam into Earth, humanity has a few options. A new guide could help NASA decide which one is best.

Inflation stretched the tiny universe into a macroscopic size and turned cosmic energy into matter. But it likely created an equal amount of matter and antimatter. It's not clear why but the authors probe one theory that a phase transition after inflation led to a tiny bit more matter than anti-matter and also created cosmic strings which would produce slight ripples in space-time known as gravitational waves.

Ripples in space-time could explain the mystery of why the universe exists

By Yasemin Saplakoglu

A new study may help answer one of the universe's biggest mysteries.

A pair of images show two views of Pallas with its pock-marked surface.

This is the most violent object in the solar system

By Rafi Letzter

New images reveal that one of the strangest asteroids in the solar system is also the most covered in craters, after billions of years plowing through the asteroid belt like a runaway train.

An image from NASA's Cassini probe, taken Sept. 23, 2006, shows a pair of hydrocarbon lakes on Titan.

Saturn's weird, Earth-like moon just failed a key test for alien life

By Rafi Letzter

Life on Earth likely began with the bubble-like membranes that surround our cells. Similar membranes probably wouldn't form on Titan, according to quantum mechanics.

A photo shows the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment Fast Radio Burst Project at night.

New pattern uncovered in mysterious 'fast radio bursts' from deep space

By Rafi Letzter

For the first time, astrophysicists have detected a pattern in fast radio bursts, one of the most mysterious phenomena in the universe.

An illustration shows what the interior of IceCube might look like without the ice.

A super-rare 'Zee burst' in Antarctica could one day unlock a key mystery of ghostly neutrinos

By Rafi Letzter

Watch out for the Zee burst!

Photons could reveal 'massive gravity,' new theory suggests

By Rafi Letzter

This is a radical new design compared to the world's most sensitive gravitational wave detectors.

Artist's illustration of Lense-Thirring frame-dragging resulting from a rotating white dwarf in the PSR J1141-6545 binary star system.

Space-time is swirling around a dead star, proving Einstein right again

By Charles Q. Choi

The way the fabric of space and time swirls in a cosmic whirlpool around a dead star has confirmed yet another prediction from Einstein's theory of general relativity, a new study finds.